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The Death of a Relationship and Its Critical Remains

The Relationship:

When analyzing Nietzsche’s critical writings and often harsh polemics against

Wagner one must understand the relationship that developed and disintegrated between

the two, and the effects these interactions had on the two men, particularly on the

younger philosopher who would soon find so many faults in his one time mentor. The

young Nietzsche must have felt great anxiety during the first meetings with such an

exalted figure, having never met a man of such worldly renown before. And as Wagner

began to show interest in Nietzsche, and as, after a while, a significant relationship

developed between the two men, growing stronger with seemingly no end, those early

anxieties turned into a satisfaction that was as proportionately great as the trepidation he

once felt. The feeling of fulfillment was immense for Nietzsche, giving him not only an

outlet and focal point for his academic interests, but a friend and, by proxy, a place in the

world. Wagner even provided, according to many scholars, a father figure that had long

been sorely lacking in Nietzsche’s life. And in retrospect it seems very appropriate to

classify Wagner as a father figure for Nietzsche, given the way in which the relationship

ended and at the way the end of this friendship affected Nietzsche in his development as a

man and thinker.

Nietzsche’s descriptions of Wagner and his art, while often reverent and grateful

in nature, are also quite bitter and biting in their harshness. Nietzsche not only questions

Wagner as a person, calling him decadent, but also marginalizes the value of Wagner’s

musical abilities. The man that he once idolized becomes to the maturing Nietzsche the

embodiment of everything that is wrong with Europe and mankind. Wagner becomes the

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symbol for the world weary and over-domesticated common people, as well as being a

provider of lies and illusions that make the culturally diseased people of Europe able to

withstand and continue in a world of suffering that they truly wish to escape. In

fashioning an image of Wagner such as this Nietzsche has created someone who

encompasses the totality of the things that Nietzsche wishes to revolt against. One telling

example is that Nietzsche goes from praising Wagner for the composer’s ability to

replace the role of religion in people’s lives, which indeed was a goal of Wagner, to

criticizing him for the very same trait, finding now in his mentor the ancient errors of

religion.

Yet, regardless of the criticisms leveled by Nietzsche, if one studies the

philosophy of art and life offered in his writings one will be able to see that a favorable

opinion of Wagner’s art and ideas is necessitated by the perspective that is offered in the

writings of the philosopher. Indeed, many of the psychological, cultural and philosophical

insights that Nietzsche is known for are presaged in Wagner’s operas. In fact, the

essential idea in the pro-wagnerian work of Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, becomes the

underlying principal in the philosopher’s subsequent works. And, given this interpretation

of Nietzsche’s works as essentially stemming from an idea in his wagnerian past, the

works of Wagner represent a distinctive artistic accomplishment. Not only must they be

seen by a Nietzschean to have significant aesthetic value, but to have particular

importance in the ideas that they express, which seem to be further developed

subsequently by Nietzsche. But while a Nietzschean perspective of Wagner must reveal

the great value of the art and the artist, the essential criticism that the philosopher levies

at the composer, that he is the embodiment of the decline and world weariness of Europe

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is a valid analysis, given Nietzsche’s definition of decadence. Placing the appellation of

decadent onto Wagner is largely due to the expression of Schopenhauerian ideas in the

composer’s operas. Those ideas advocated by Schopenhauer which are seen in Wagner’s

operas, especially the idea of renouncing the world in order to gain a certain kind of

peace and tranquillity, are thought of by Nietzsche as a reaction of people unable to

withstand the essential chaotic nature of the world. These people label their natural

reaction against life as a free and proper decision toward a higher being or consciousness,

while in truth their pursuit of peace only reflects, according to Nietzsche, the weakening

and decline of a person or culture. Both Schopenhauer and, by extension, Wagner, are an

expression and a reaction in line with such decadence. Thus, while Nietzsche’s criticism

of Wagner is somewhat self-contradictory, there is also merit in this criticism which

highlights the rift that truly did exist between the two men and their world views.

However the severity with which this criticism is levied shows more than an ideological

difference between the two men, it shows the nature of their relationship and the deep

influence that Wagner had on Nietzsche.

Nietzsche Contra Nietzsche:

In his books Nietzsche Contra Wagner and The Case of Wagner Nietzsche at

times speaks with one of his harshest tones about the virtues of Wagner. Then at another

time he says with the greatest possible respect and deference that Wagner is the

personification of every modern problem of mankind. Nietzsche’s dark humor and

critical eye are turned away from Wagner, however, in that philosopher’s first major

work, The Birth of Tragedy. The original title of this work is The Birth of Tragedy Out of

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the Spirit of Music, a work written in 1872 while Nietzsche was still under the sway of

Wagner and his ideas. In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche outlines a view regarding the

origins of Greek tragedy that is influenced by one of Wagner’s theoretical papers on

aesthetics, namely Art and Revolution. In the beginning of this paper by Wagner the

terms Dionysian and Appolonian are mentioned, yet they are not fully developed. In the

early work by Nietzsche however, these ideas are analyzed in order to discover the source

from which the great Greek tragedians sprang. Nietzsche posits the view that tragedy

came from the ancient Greek festivals dedicated to the god Dionysus. In these festivals

the Greek citizens would become intoxicated and, letting their social inhibitions drop

away, would sing, chant and dance in an animalistic manner like primitive people. These

festivities were supposed to draw the group together into an experience and an expression

of their usually suppressed primordial and chaotic natures, an expression of the vivacious

and powerful living force within each individual which Dionysus represents (The Birth of

Tragedy, 36-37). During these festivals the Greeks would sing together, letting the unity

of their wild song express the principle, the god Dionysus, that lay behind them all. Each

man faceless and without identity, the ritual created a transcendental sense of community

which allowed the vivacious energies of the animal man to seep into and refresh the

individuals and the society to which they belonged; and further to reconcile the artificial

structures used to subjugate nature back into alignment with the natural order, harmony

and force from which man and his conventions sprung.

But these festivals are but the Dionysian part of the origins of tragedy. Once these

festivals allowed mankind to see his primordial nature, his own relative insignificance,

and the tumultuous chaos at the root of his being the Greeks were forced to find a way to

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withstand and understand this experience. The process of bringing order and

understanding, of finding meaning in the primal sensation, this process is the true cause

of tragedy. While the revelers sang in order to express their connection to Dionysus

eventually their songs took on narrative structures, and they would then sing stories of

Dionysus and of tales that represent the exuberance felt in the rhythm of their song (65).

These songs provided images which gave an order to the deep rooted sensations being

discovered by the Greeks, and in doing so they represented the secrets of Dionysus in

Appolonian constructs. Now not only did the festival of Dionysus include a rhythmic and

chanting crowd that had come under the sway of Dionysus, but also the group sang a

story that would relay in words and themes the primordial unity and chaos found within

the ritual. The same force that was responsible for the wild and savage songs of the

Maenads would thus guide the orderly Appolonian style of arts.

At this point drama does not yet exist though. The tragedy begins when the story

stops being sung and starts being acted. Eventually the narrative was not enough, the

singers let themselves become the medium of art. Thus they let the guiding force behind

the story and song guide them into acting out a play. Once the actor has appeared the

singers thus become the chorus, they do not act, but merely transform the actor, a mere

mortal, into a divine image through their song (65). They produce the environment that

lets the man become the image of Dionysus, or some other narrative that illustrates the

passion behind their song. The entity which is now the chorus is thus the essence of

tragedy for Nietzsche, from the chorus the actor appeared, and by the chorus the actor is

able to become that which he wishes to portray. And, since the chorus is an agent of song,

and it is their song that produces the actors and drama, to Nietzsche tragedy was truly

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born from the force, or spirit, that created the cultic Greek music. So tragedy, according

to Nietzsche, arose when the Appolonian images were used to give order and objective

content to the subjective sensations experienced during the Dionystic rituals. And,

accordingly, Greek drama is seen as actors which are supported by the music of a chorus,

with the chorus being seen as the essence of the art, the actors being only a mere

representation of the content expressed by the rhythmic chanting of the chorus.

Such a view of the creation of tragedy was quite flattering to the art and aesthetic

theories of Wagner. Wagner, after reading the philosopher Schopenhauer’s The World as

Will and Representation, had been a proponent of an idea found in Schopenhauer’s work.

This was the idea that music was the highest art, and that all other arts were inferior to

music’s ability to accomplish artistic goals (The World as Will and Representation vol. 1,

265). The goal of art is, to Schopenhauer, to allow the person viewing the art to

temporarily remove himself from the physical world inhabited by people, and to focus on

an otherworldly force, the Will, which is said to be the creator and shaper of every

corporeal object. Art is able to allow the viewer to focus directly on the Will via the style

of the piece of art, and to stop focusing on the everyday objects which are manifestations

of the Will. In this way the viewer of art comes into contact, through contemplation of a

work, with the principle behind all existence. Yet music accomplishes this task to a

greater degree than other mediums do. For Schopenhauer and Wagner music is not a

manifestation of the universal principle in the same way as other arts, while they

generalize the corporeal world into a style, and thus through this style express the

creative force behind all things, music generalizes nothing. Music is, in a way, pure style;

it is a direct manifestation of the universal Will, meanwhile other arts only express that

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version of the Will that the artist found in the objects of his experience and forged into

his style. Because of this, music does not need to be contemplated in order for a viewer to

be taken out of himself and allowed to experience the metaphysical Will, music allows all

listeners to experience the Will directly. This is the reason that Wagner and

Schopenhauer claim music as the ultimate art, and, furthermore, because it is a self-

contained world, with value equal to the everyday world, more so than any other art form.

While other mediums are dependent on the corporeal world as a reference point, music

exists separately from all other sensations. Thus the other-worldly experience that art is to

provide is accomplished to a greater degree in music, since other arts force the subject to

remain concentrating to some extent on the physical world. The Will is then able to be

more deeply and directly experienced in music, and through the relation with this art the

world can be transcended, this being the goal of both Schopenhauer the philosopher and

eventually Wagner the musician.

Nietzsche’s aesthetic philosophy presented in The Birth of Tragedy is similar in

many ways to that of Schopenhauer and Wagner. As Nietzsche describes the force that

Dionysus represents, it seems to be similar to Schopenhauer’s Will. For Schopenhauer

the Will is a seething chaotic and mindless force that manifests itself as the corporeal

world. Furthermore, the Will is the principal behind all individual entities, and thus all

things in the earth are connected to it in their essence and origin. Dionysus is also seen to

represent the force of animalistic vitality that exists in all organisms, and is seen to be a

force that is as irrational and chaotic as the Will. Further, the experience of Dionysus,

attained through the music of the Greek festivals just as the Will is experienced in art, is a

sensation in which one is united with all other people and with nature as well, a sensation

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in which one’s individuality fades away. Thus, for Nietzsche, one gains an experience of

Dionysus through music, and the experience one gains is of a primal and chaotic force

that unifies one with the world and all the seeming individuals within this world.

Nietzsche can then be understood as drawing his conclusion that music is the essence of

that great cultural accomplishment, tragedy, for a similar reason that Schopenhauer and

Wagner declare that music is the supreme art. This reason is that these men each believe

that music allows one to transcend individuality in order to experience the primal force

causing and perpetuating all of existence.

Thus the early philosophical endeavor by Nietzsche is seen to be pro-Wagnerian,

for Wagner had taken Schopenhauer’s aesthetic and metaphysical talk of music being the

surest means by which to experience the metaphysical Will behind all of existence to

heart. He had rejected his past views and followed Schopenhauer from then on because of

this view of that philosopher (Magee, The Tristan Chord, 176). Nietzsche merely echoes

these views in his borrowing and elaboration of the one time Wagnerian terms Dionysian

and Appolonian.

The Birth of Tragedy is not only sympathetic to Wagner’s views of art and opera

however, the philosopher’s early work also presents a favorable view of Wagner’s art and

of the composer himself. As Bryan Magee says in his study of Wagner’s operas, The

Tristan Chord, “It would be difficult to imagine a more saturatedly Wagnerian work by

anyone other than the composer himself.” (297). As Magee points out, the work is

dedicated to Wagner, the preface is a dialogue of gratitude to Wagner, and in fact “the

entire book is addressed to Wagner” (297). Not only explicitly, but also implicitly the

work is Wagnerian. As Nietzsche illustrates his vision of the origins of Greek tragedy he

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creates an aesthetic view by which Wagner’s operas would represent the greatest artistic

and cultural achievement to date. For example, Wagner, a lover of Greek tragedies, had

compared his proposed use of the operatic orchestra to the ancient tragedians use of the

chorus. He believed, initially, that the proper role of the orchestra was to comment and

lead and encourage the action of the stage (Magee, 91). In this view the music would aid

the drama in accomplishing Wagner’s artistic goal. However, with the discovery of

Schopenhauer, Wagner somewhat reevaluated the role of the orchestra. Now the music

does not accompany the action, but leads it. The action is merely the manifestation of the

themes and passion within the music. Such is the case in Tristan and Isolde. In this opera

the unending longing that Wagner believes is inherent in living entities is expressed by

the music. The music is now aided by, as opposed to itself aiding, the plot. That the

characters merely represent the themes of the orchestra is seen in the fact that the music

continues its essential striving and hungering form despite the dying of characters. For

example, as Tristan dies, and is thus released from his desires and passions, the music

continues to express man’s unending urges. Then Isolde enters, and as she pines to be

again with her lover Tristan, she manifests the yearnings that the music contains.

Throughout the opera, as the music continues without end to express Man’s insatiable

desires, characters continually appear in order to represent this longing once a previous

representative has died. When the orchestra ceases, however, and the music has resolved

and ended the insatiable longing expressed in it, the last character dies and no other

appears, for the passion has disappeared that those actors were used to objectify.

The way in which Nietzsche views the chorus of the Greeks, to which Wagner

had compared both of his views of the operatic orchestra, encapsulates each Wagnerian

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belief. In keeping with the early Wagnerian view, Nietzsche states in The Birth of

Tragedy that the chorus was utilized to aid the plot of a drama. It commented and

interacted with the hero, helping move along the action, and at the same time

commenting and creating insights into the action unfolding, thereby better guiding the

experience of the audience. The orchestra of early Wagnerian operas was meant to do this

precisely. Yet, the chorus in Nietzsche’s view, like the orchestra in Wagner’s later

operas, was also the most important element of a partly musical art. Not only from the

chorus did tragedy originate, but the rhythmic chanting and singing of the chorus was the

force that caused the audience to come under the spell of the drama. By this music the

spectators came to feel the vivacious and destructive energy which the play merely was a

representative of. Through the chorus the Greeks came to feel directly the themes that the

actors manifested on stage, and thus the chorus is what caused the audience to believe

and give themselves over to the plot. In other words, the chorus imbued the actors and

plot with the divine importance the Greeks placed on their dramatic festivities. Similarly

with Wagner’s orchestration. It is the music that awakens the deep rooted and suppressed

feeling of the audience, which enchants them into a state of stimulation and emotional

excitement. With the music having done this the plot and characters then take on the

significance that they possess for the audience, as those spectators transfer the awakened

sensations within themselves onto the characters on stage. Thus Nietzsche’s view of the

tragic chorus – that the singing not only aids the plot it provides the plot with its’ near

divine significance –is Wagnerian in that it reflects both conceptions of orchestral music

within the composer’s art. Furthermore, since, through the use of music, the

“inexpressible depths of the irrational” nature of humanity are illustrated and stirred by

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Wagner, and since from here he provides plot and actors onto which the audience can

project these deep rooted feelings, Wagner’s art is then a significant accomplishment. For

the ultimate form of drama, according to The Birth of Tragedy, is that which combines

the probing and stimulating medium of music with more objective elements of plot and

character. Wagner does this, and so by forming a view of the origins of tragedy that

places music as the most important element, Nietzsche has created a history of art that is

obliged to place Wagner and his operas as the penultimate achievement.

The Birth of Tragedy is thus seen to be a Wagnerian work. It not only flatters the

operatic theories of Wagner, but his art and the composer as well. However, the main

idea of this early philosophical work, while being pro-Wagner, is also the foundations

upon which all of Nietzsche’s subsequent philosophy will rest. The main idea of The

Birth of Tragedy is the importance of combining the Dionystic and Appolonian forces in

order to create a more perfect art and life. This idea, though not subsequently formed

using the same terms, appears throughout the Nietzsche cannon. During the philosopher’s

lifelong analysis of the human sub-conscious, Nietzsche states that the sub-conscious

mind is responsible for the majority of human behavior. Nietzsche describes the sub-

conscious as a teeming hoard of suppressed desires and instincts, the animalistic mass of

which he names as the Will to Power. This Will is in many ways a re-working of the

force behind the revelers of Dionysus. The Will to Power, like the power that the cultic

Greek god represented, is an animalistic and instinctual force which all living creatures

are controlled by. Nietzsche’s philosophy is in large part an attempt to come to an

understanding of this aspect of human nature and to allow this more primitive force

within ourselves to rise to the surface of our lives. Indeed, for Nietzsche the healthy man

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was he who was closely connected to this force, who acted out the, at times, brutal

directives of the Will. This healthy individual, at times called the superman, is not

compelled by the feelings of guilt with which society tries to domesticate the animalistic

nature of man, he does not suppress his desires in order to remain proper or sanctified.

Instead, the superman, allowing himself to be controlled completely by his own Will,

revels in the primordial force that naturally compels his actions, and feels joy at acting as

his Will directs him, thinking not of the consequences or the rewards. Nietzsche, with this

philosophy, thus wishes to accomplish precisely what, in his opinion, Greek tragedy once

accomplished. Just as tragedy once caused the primitive force within all living creatures

to rise within the Greeks, Nietzsche wished to help mankind tap into the Will to Power,

and to allow this force to guide our lives and actions. And, as Dionysus once freed the

Greeks of their social conventions, so, by raising from the sub-conscious mind the

essential drive of all organisms, Nietzsche wished to transcend the repressive social order

of his times. Nietzsche thus aspired, through his philosophy, to become a dramatist and

artist, but on a great scale. His music would be his philosophy, raising Man’s primitive

nature from the subliminal level. His actors would be those who came to accept his ideas,

as they acted under the spell of the Will to Power that his literature had awakened,

moving to its’ commands as the Greek actors moved to the rhythm of the music. Indeed,

Nietzsche refers to this image he had of himself at the beginning of one of his books, with

the statement, “Let the tragedy begin.”(). And throughout his works he makes reference

to Dionysus, comparing the god and his mythical followers with Nietzsche’s own ideas

and vision of a robust and healthy mankind. So Nietzsche, who formulated the

importance of the fusion of Dionysus and Appolonian forces, in order, largely, to

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illustrate the preeminence of Wagner as an artist, was subsequently guided by this idea

throughout the rest of his philosophy. And, while the idea takes on variations from its The

Birth of Tragedy beginnings, Nietzsche continued to think of the reformulated version of

the Dionystic force, The Will to Power, as an extension of this original drama-interested

work.

By viewing Nietzsche’s philosophy in this manner one can then reevaluate the

philosopher’s criticisms of Wagner, and can begin to see the accomplishment that the

composer’s art must have truly been to Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s aim in a large portion of

his writings was to uncover the deep-rooted psychological essence of Man, his actions

and his behavior. He wished for people to experience the sub-conscious urges, feelings

and passions within themselves, and thereby to come to terms with their true humanity.

Wagner’s art also contains this purpose. Wagner’s music pulls from the audience not just

sentimental emotions, but also Man’s primitive nature that lies behind his actions, and

which he shares with all living creatures; it evokes that which the Tragedians once did,

and which Nietzsche would one day try to discuss and analyze.

However, Wagner’s art does not just cause the audience to experience and

become conscious of a long suppressed nature in general. It is unlike the primitive cult

festivals that enlivened the crowd through music and which merely made the listener feel

in some vague way the primordial force of life that exists within himself. Rather Wagner,

like Nietzsche would himself do, analyzes that force. Yet Wagner is able to accomplish

this solely through his art. For, while most of Wagner’s operas are able to cause a person

to experience the feeling of a hidden inner nature, each one does this in a different way.

The result is that each artwork offers a new insight into that force that Nietzsche labels

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the Will to Power, and that the Greeks represented with Dionysus. For example, each

Ring opera gives a new insight into that human nature which the cycle as a whole

demonstrates. The Ring as a whole offers an analysis of the desire for power that is

inherent to life and all living creatures. Beginning with Das Rheingold, the audience

comes to feel the desire for power that exists within themselves as the music and action

stimulates the suppressed longing for control over the world that drives all life. Die

Walkure then conjures in the listener the confusion, angst, and isolation that living

creatures feel as they unavoidably give in to the desire for power, a feeling long avoided

but never escaped by Wagner’s audience and by all of humanity. In Siegfried another

aspect of human nature is demonstrated. Here those aspects of the Will that seem

negative are manifested in Siegfried, and are stimulated in the audience by the music, but

now with the effect that a new feeling is produced. Now the fear and angst of giving

oneself over to power lust is not felt, but instead one feels the joy and exuberance that can

occur when mindlessly obeying the Will. The robust feeling of hope and possibility that

Man often feels when giving himself over to their inner nature is created by Wagner in

the audience, and the negative fear from Die Walkure is transcended. Yet in

Gotterdammerung the transcendent joy that constitutes experiencing the essential force of

life is erased. While the angst aroused by the second Ring opera is not an in depth enough

view of human nature for Wagner, neither is the feeling of hope found in Siegfried. The

feeling of hope that exists within some of those who obey the desires for power which

drives existence is a lie. In the final opera Wagner attempts to make the audience feel the

ultimate futility of life and the essential force behind each man and existence in general.

For Wagner the ultimate nature of mankind and life is thus presented as he illustrates the

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futility and unworthwhile nature of that force which drives life. Thus the Ring first causes

the audience to feel that desire for power that guides all life and human affairs which

Nietzsche would call the Dionystic force. The angst and fear that one feels while being

controlled by this terrible power is then conjured in the listener. From here the joy and

hope one can experience when one comes more into harmony with this force is felt.

Finally the Will is analyzed as irredeemable, and the joy one felt in the last opera is seen

as false. Not only does Wagner cause the audience to experience the sub-conscious world

that drives human behavior and directs the flow of life, and not only does he offer an

analysis of this force, Wagner also causes a development of the audience’s sensation of

the Will. The result is that the audience not only consciously understands the human

nature they have come to feel, but they also experience the increasingly complex views of

the Will at an emotional level. To a philosopher such as Nietzsche, whose work was

created in order to stimulate an experience and understanding of the hidden forces within

humanity and life, art such as the Ring is thus a particular achievement. And the

criticisms that Nietzsche directed towards Wagner’s art are seen to contradict the origins

and goals of the philosopher’s ideas.

Nietzsche contra Wagner:

Though it is true that Wagner heavily influenced Nietzsche’s philosophy, and

though an objectively applied Nietzschean analysis of Wagner’s art would be forced to

look favorably on the composer’s operas, still some of the criticisms levied by Nietzsche

contain truth. Such is the case with what Nietzsche believes to be the most central flaw in

Wagner and his art. This is Wagner’s supposed decadence. A decadent is, according to

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Nietzsche, one in whom the vital energies have begun to wane, one who no longer is able

to enjoy the essential animalistic nature of existence, and who is thus unfit to live. Such a

person, who is no longer able to affirm and justify life based on its own merits, will

subsequently choose one of two paths. Most people choose to give meaning to their lives

by positing an entity or concept which exists apart from the corporeal world. Christians

do this with their belief that God is the essence of life, and Kant does this as well with his

idea of a noumenal world in which the true essence of all phenomenal things exists.

Others, who are unable to believe in the ability of any metaphysical construct to justify

existence and who also lack the strength to affirm life in itself, such people must

necessarily conclude that life is inherently meaningless and worthless. This group

therefore rejects life. Schopenhauer is a representative of this group, for while he posits

an otherworldly force underlying life, this force is only a reflection of the inherent

chaotic suffering underlying existence; Schopenhauer’s Will is not used to justify life,

rather it serves to explain the (to him) unlivable conditions inherent in this existence that

is to be rejected. To Nietzsche both the person who seeks to find an external justification

of life and the person who wishes to escape life and its tumultuous nature are equally

decadent. Each lack the ability to become excited and find life worthwhile based solely

on the eternal conflict that they, as living creatures, are a part of.

This is Nietzsche’s definition of decadence, and in The Case of Wagner ,

Nietzsche explains why he considers Wagner as such. The thrust of his argument is that

Wagner is a disciple of Schopenhauer, and is thus decadent. Wagner and his work are

indeed Schopenhauerian. A large number of Wagner’s operas contain a desire for peace

and for a release from a life filled with suffering which can be found in that philosophy

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that the composer was so influenced by. This is the case even in early works such as The

Flying Dutchman, where the eternally sailing Dutchman wishes only for a release from

his existence. He takes no joy from his adventurous journeys, as Nietzsche believes a

healthy individual would (The Gay Science), but instead his entire life has become a

search for an escape from life. Like Schopenhauer’s philosophy, it is only the eventual

release from this brutal life, which life has beaten and destroyed the once ambitious

Dutchman, that justifies the sailor’s continued existence. Another example is the Ring

cycle, which is a massive illustration of the metaphysical Will. These operas end when

Brunnhilde renounces the world created by Wagner in the image of Schopenhauer’s Will,

and renounces the Will that exists within Brunnhilde herself. Tristan and Isolde also

illustrates a Schopenhauerian view that life is filled with insatiable desire, and that the

only way to truly reach a sense of spiritual satisfaction is to renounce one’s desire and the

objects of desire that constitute the world. The effect of Wagner’s art is meant to relay

into the innermost feelings of the audience such a view of life and the world. The music

of Tristan and Isolde is meant to raise feelings of longing and desire within the audience,

and with the conclusion of the music such feelings are meant to be let go. This allows the

audience to desire throughout the opera the spiritual satisfaction and peace prescribed by

Schopenhauer, and, as the music ends, to receive a sense of what that peace may feel like.

Wagner is thus guilty of Nietzsche’s indictment that the composer is spreading

Schopenhauer to the masses by means of his operas, for Wagner’s art both represents to,

and creates within the audience a Schopenhauerian view of existence.

Furthermore, in seeing how Wagner is Schopenhauerian, one also can understand

Nietzsche’s criticism that Wagner is decadent. Nietzsche presents this belief in The Case

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of Wagner by comparing the dramatic love of Wagner to that of Bizet(157-160). Here the

love seen in operas such as Carmen is described as “natural”, in that it is presented as

“innocent, cynical, cruel.” Here Nietzsche’s embracing of the violent and chaotic

elements of life, which elements Schopenhauer rejects, can be seen. Nietzsche writes that

he is invigorated and “made fertile” by Bizet’s operas, for these operas awaken within

him the animalistic force that Dionysus aroused in the Maenads. On the other hand the

love of Wagner’s operas is criticized as being used as a tool to escape life. The redeeming

women with whom Wagner’s heroes fall in love are not natural and do not participate in

any physical or worldly expressions of their relationships. They seem to exist beyond the

world, and to offer an aid to those who wish to transcend and escape a life that has

become intolerable.

It is this desire for transcendence and peace that one finds motivating and

becoming the essence of Wagner’s operas which Nietzsche found objectionable and for

which he labeled the composer a decadent. To Nietzsche the recoiling from the world

should be compared to the recoiling that a worm performs when stepped on (Twilight of

the Idols, 471). Just as the worm shrinks away from a stimulus that has injured it, and for

which it lacks the strength to confront, so the person who rejects the world is merely

trying to avoid coming into contact with something it is not able to survive or withstand.

While a man filled with strength and vital energies is able to take joy in the conflicts of

life, seeing in them that powerful vital force that directs himself and connect him to the

entire world, the man of diminished energies cannot help but reject a natural world order

that he is a reject within. Nietzsche labels Schopenhauer and Wagner as this sort of man.

For, while all three men share a similar view of existence, that it is inherently filled with

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strife and suffering, and that behind all events and entities there is an underlying force

which is responsible for this chaotic life, these men disagree on how to react to such an

existence. Nietzsche embraces it, believing that it is justified simply on its own merits,

that a healthy person experiencing life cannot help but feel exhilarated by the power.

Wagner rejects this exhilarating power, desiring instead a rest and peace from the

disorder that accompanies such excitement. Herein lies the philosophical rift that actually

existed between Wagner and Nietzsche, and it is this difference that causes Nietzsche to

criticize Wagner as a decadent man.

Nietzsche’s true philosophical differences with Wagner therefore somewhat

clarifies the seeming contradiction found as the philosopher, who remained forever

intellectually indebted to the composer, criticizes harshly the man he once praised. Yet,

Nietzsche also makes statements, found in both his published and private writings, that

express his gratitude and continued admiration for Wagner and his art even after the rift

between the two arose. While he may publicly compare Carmen favorably with Wagner’s

operas, in private letters Nietzsche recants such a view, revealing his still ardent passion

for Wagner and his work (Magee, 327). Indeed, Nietzsche’s seemingly contradictory

opinions of Wagner are largely due to his respect for the insight into the nature of

existence offered by the composer’s music, which is simultaneously experienced with his

revulsion at Wagner’s rejection of such a nature. However, much of the polemics against

Wagner are a result of the type of relationship that Nietzsche shared with this man, and a

result of the effect that the end of this friendship had on Nietzsche.

Many, such as Magee, see the importance of the relationship in the way it ended,

believing that the scandalous end of the friendship is responsible both for the break and

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for Nietzsche’s ardor against Wagner. But this view does not properly take into account

what Wagner meant to Nietzsche. Wagner was a father figure to the philosopher; the

younger man having not known his true father well projected many paternal feeling onto

Wagner. Not having a father, the young Nietzsche would not have developed

psychologically as most children do. In Freudian terms he would not have properly

completed the Oedipal stage. There was no father in the household to fear as a rival, no

male to immolate and to eventually revolt against in order to become a true man. Wagner

provided all this. Nietzsche was brought into the household almost as a son. Here he took

on the beliefs of Wagner in order to overcome his trepidation that he once felt before a

world-renowned man. Here he even came to fall in love with Wagner’s wife. That

Nietzsche thus revolted so completely against Wagner, creating a philosophy that is the

antithesis to his one time mentor is thus not surprising. Nietzsche’s break with Wagner

was merely the philosopher’s belated maturation process. Wagner allowed Nietzsche to

become an adult in a way he may otherwise have not been able to become, and in doing

so he permanently influenced the ideas and character of Nietzsche, despite the natural

filial hostility on Nietzsche’s part.

James Ham

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Works Cited

Magee, Bryan. The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy. New York: Henry Holt &

Co., 2000.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. New York: Random House inc., 1966.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner. New York: Random

House inc., 1967.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. New York: Random House inc., 1974.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1976.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation vol. I. New York: Dover

Publications Inc., 1969.

Wagner, Richard. The Ring of the Nibelung. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc.,

1976.